Bulgar Wheat and Lentil Salad with Spicy Kale and Feta

Sabrina Ghayour is a British-Iranian cook and food writer, who has published 2 very successful cooking books with Persian and Middle Eastern dishes. This recipe was published in her second cookbook, Sirocco: Fabulous flavours from the East, and was referred to in our newspaper, Het Parool, as a starter for 2 persons (and more confusing as “serving 2 as a starter or 4 as a main meal” in the linked recipe from Red Magazine).

I think that it can even indeed serve 4 to 6 as a main meal, especially if some protein – like fried white fish or roast chicken – is added. Not that the latter is necessary as it is already great on its own: a delicious and healthy salad with bold Middle Eastern flavours that come through via the cumin, turmeric, cinnamon and a huge loads of garlic and red chilli peppers. They really bring the lentils, bulgur wheat and stir fried kale to life.

As the braised spicy kale is added to cooled down lentils and bulgar, it may be called a warm salad, but much more than room temperature it will not become. The next day, straight from the fridge, it still tasted great though!

I swapped the kale once with roughly chopped cavolo nero leaves (as depicted above) and that was delicious too.

This was the kale version prior to finishing with feta and pumpkin seeds.